Thursday, January 21, 2010

Cal-Mond Cookies Recipe (Raw Food Cookies), Healthy and Delicious

Here’s the healthy cookies I mentioned in my last post that I was going to tell you about soon, Cal-Mond Cookies! Oh, I know, after seeing those Tuesday’s With Dorie Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars that I made with pecans and Rolo candies, there just can’t be anything better. Well, for me, these are. Why? Because I can eat them without the extreme guilt I feel with just a bite or two of the Almost-Candy Bars.

My sister-in-law recently sent me a bunch of raw foods recipes. No, I’m not going all raw food, vegan, healthy on you. But I do like when I can still have a treat and I don’t feel so guilty about it AND it’s good! These aren’t really anything new, I’ve actually made some similar cookies before, but it was a long time ago and I was happy to be reminded of these.

Cal-Mond Cookies, source unknown, but adapted by Katrina

1/2 cup raw almonds

1/4 cup raw walnuts

dash salt

2-4 tablespoons agave nectar (I only used 2)

1/2 cup pitted Medjool dates

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup dried tart cherries (or raisins) The cherries are awesome!

1/4 cup ground almonds

2 tablespoons unsweetened coconut flakes

First grind the 1/4 cup almonds in a food processor until finely ground. Remove from processor to a small bowl. Add the coconut and mix together. Set aside.

Grind the almonds and walnuts in a food processor until finely chopped. Add the chopped up pitted dates, salt, vanilla and cherries and process until it starts coming together. Add 2 tablespoons of agave until mixture is well combined. Add a little more if necessary. Form dough into one inch balls. Roll in almond/coconut mixture. Flatten slightly and lay them on waxed paper. Keep the cookies chilled.

Now I’ve got to tell you something rather funny, sort of. I’ve bought chopped dates before. But when I saw Medjool dates in the store recently, I grabbed them as I’ve never tried that kind and have wanted to. So I set out to make these cookies and for some (dummy me) reason it just didn’t cross my mind that these big, beautiful whole dates have the pits still in them. I threw them in the food processor with the ground nuts and started it a whirring away. I was really surprised that there was such the loud noise coming from the processor. Do you think that stopped me? Oh no. I just let it keep going. Are you laughing yet? You better not be, yeah you, I’m pointing to you! When the mixture was all ready to form into balls, I began doing so. Then I saw a brown thing in the dough and pulled it out thinking “That’s strange, one of the almonds didn’t chop up.” And get this, I popped it in my mouth and chomped down on it. That dadgum thing was the rock hardest almond I’d ever eaten. Friends, Family, Whoever, I STILL hadn’t thought about those pits! I took the “almond” out of my mouth and examined it, it didn’t really look like an almond. IT WASN’T! Then it just hit me, you know, like waking up in the morning hits you, “That’s a date pit!” I began looking through more of the dough and I found all those little buggers, still completely whole! THEY were what was making so much noise in there!

Yep, I’m just not all here sometimes, Folks. That said, I carried on and made these delicious little, healthy treats! They are sweet and nutty and “Hey, Katrina, what’s that chocolaty looking thing there in the middle?” Why, I’m glad you asked and really, did you have to ask, it’s me here—it’s chocolate! Raw chocolate. And guess what—it’s really good. And I made it. Months ago. Homemade raw chocolate chips have been in my freezer, sort of forgotten about. I remembered them after I made these cookies and thought how good just a little bite of chocolate would be with these.

I found these little gems on Angela’s blog, Oh She Glows. If I was ever going to be a raw foods, vegan, 100% organic, dairy free, refined sugar free kind of gal, THIS is who I’d want to be. Check out her blog. I think she’s pretty amazing! So after she posted about this raw chocolate chip and raw chocolate chip cookies, I was intrigued. So I made them. I’m not sure why I never blogged about them. The cookie dough is made with mostly ground up cashews, much like these Cal-Mond Cookies. But she also shares a recipe for raw chocolate chips. Her recipe says to use 1/2 cup cocoa powder and 1/2 cup carob powder, but that all cocoa is okay, so that is what I did. If I remember correctly, I may have needed to use a little more agave until it all came together.

Raw Chocolate Chips, adapted from Angela at Oh She Glows by Katrina

2 tablespoon coconut oil

1/2 cup carob powder (I used all cocoa powder)

1/2 cup cocoa powder

4 tablespoons agave nectar

2 teaspoon vanilla

Mix all chocolate chip ingredients together in a food processor. Roll the dough out onto parchment paper and place in the freezer for about 30 minutes after 15 minutes., flip the chocolate sheet over for even freezing. When chocolate is frozen, cut into chips using a pizza cutter. Store in a plastic bag in the freezer.

26 comments:

Hey... I just bought some dates! And I have everything else in the pantry (minus the agave...)! These look fantastic. I love the little "jewel" in the middle - plus the coconut! Nice "private recipe" Katrina!

Katrina. those look amazing! Who knew raw cookies could be so delectable? I love dates and my hoard of dried fruits and nuts is overflowing, so this seems like an ideal way to make a dent in them :) Beautifully done!

Yes it was me laughing about you and your date pits ahahahaah! (just got beautiful fat dates in Tunisia by the way). That was funny! Cool raw cookies! I think raw baking is pretty cool, you really have to have imagination! Loved the chips too, how cool!

Oh Katrina, you are hilarious! I can totally picture you chomping stubbornly on a date pit, refusing to give up. :) These sound good--the last raw dessert I tried was "doughnut holes" based on flax seeds, and let's just say that a mouthful of dry flaxseedish meal was not so tasty. These, I might consider trying.

My friend Catie's into raw foods and I was just at her house looking at recipes. She had a few good ones printed from Recipezaar. Unfortunately, they called for a dehydrator. Do you have a dehydrator? I don't, but I think it's a mainstay in raw food households.

I love that you can make any recipe look amazing. I always want to eat your web page! I have no idea who the author of the recipe is. It was taught to me by Kali Cutler. I am going to make those chocolate chips YUMMY!